


Inferno.

by Athenastark06



Series: sanders statements [9]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Agnes commits arson and the statement giver is not unhappy about it, Canon-Typical The Desolation Content (The Magnus Archives), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I Wrote This While Listening to Mother Mother, Multi, Other, fire in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenastark06/pseuds/Athenastark06
Summary: The second case number mentioned at the end of this statement contains two hyperlinks, because that podcast episode was a two parter. Also I should mention that if possible I’ll be linking plot relevant episodes of The Magnus Archives, so spoilers there but hopefully only the statements will be plot relevant anyway.
Series: sanders statements [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143584





	Inferno.

**Author's Note:**

> The second case number mentioned at the end of this statement contains two hyperlinks, because that podcast episode was a two parter. Also I should mention that if possible I’ll be linking plot relevant episodes of The Magnus Archives, so spoilers there but hopefully only the statements will be plot relevant anyway.

_ Case: 008-270-006 _

_ Logan: statement of Ellis Drake regarding their childhood growing up on Hill Top Road. Original statement taken 29 October 1997. Statement recorded 20th July 2017 by Logan Princeton, Head Archivist of the Sanders Institute, London.  _

_ Statement begins. _

I’ve lived on Hill Top Road in Oxford for most of my life. We moved there when I was two, in 1957. Raymond moved in the same year, just a few months after we did. He’d inherited it from his Dad, and almost immediately began working on making it into a halfway house for teenagers, which he began doing in the ’60s. 

The kids there were weird, freaky even, always acting like everything was fine, like they didn’t hear the grownups talking about them in church, or whenever they were in shops and cafes. I spent most of my life next to that house, and I never saw any of them rise to rumours even when the person was begging for a fight, they just went through the motions of life, unaware of the judgment of most people on that long road. I never actually encountered any of them myself, because they were almost all older than me, and tended to stick together. There was only ever one child in that house who I ever got a close look at. 

Agnes Montague was in the same year as me in school, and for all that time I think I spoke to her maybe twice. She was the strangest child on Hill Top Road, even with all the weirdos from Fielding’s place. She had eyes that burned into you with a fierce intensity and a way of talking that made you feel as if she was talking only to you. I think she probably could have been very popular, but she rarely spoke, and never, ever touched anyone. But that was just another oddity of 105 Hill Top Road, and no one stopped to wonder why she was like that, if she was with Fielding, she was probably just weird. 

Eventually, we stopped seeing the 105 kids as much, and we figured Raymond was finally getting too old to take more kids in. By 1973, the only person in 105 we still saw was Agnes, but she just told us that Raymond had gone away, leaving the house to her. My aunt called the police convinced something had happened to Mr Fielding, but the investigation revealed that the house had been signed over to Agnes properly, and there was nothing suspicious about Ray’s departure. 

I only saw Agnes one other time before the fire when I was 19. It was only a few months before, and I was sitting in the field behind 105, where most teens tended to spend time in my childhood. It was quite late at night, and I had brought a telescope to watch the stars, a hobby I still have today. It was late enough I think Agnes had assumed she wasn’t being watched, but I was having trouble getting my telescope to focus and 105 was as good a place as any to check and troubleshoot and use to check the focus. 

That was all I was trying to do. Just relax and check my telescope. Instead, I found myself looking at Agnes Montague. She was standing in her garden, auburn hair flickering in the slight breeze. I remember thinking “like fire” in those few seconds, watching Anges come into focus. Then I noticed something glint in her hand. If I hadn’t been looking through the telescope, I don’t think I would’ve spotted it, but I was looking at just the right second. Just in time to see her raise the flame. She must’ve been using a lighter, or a candle or something, but from my viewpoint, it looked as if cupped in Agnes’s hand was a ball of fire, with no source but her body heat. She studied the flame in her palm for a few seconds, and I was sure I saw her say something, maybe “I’m sorry,” before the rest of whatever she was using to fuel that fire caught and all I could see was... fire. The flames spread, uncontrolled, from the garden, swallowing 105 entirely. I didn’t call anyone, how could I? I was alone in that field, and we didn’t have mobiles in the ‘70s. Even if I could have called, I’m not I would. I felt like I had just seen something weirdly private and important and to report it would get in the way of that, plus, and it seems so petty now, I’d never really liked 105 that much, and seeing it go up in flames like that felt oddly satisfying, as if I was burning the small part of my childhood I would always resent. I wasn’t sure what else to do after that point and ended up just walking home, trying to ignore the rising smoke.

I’m not sure who it was who called the fire brigade in the end, but they showed up eventually. They didn’t even bother trying to save the house, I think we all knew that was beyond saving, but they did at least try to find anyone in the house at the time. I stayed up for most of that night, waiting for when they found Agnes’s body, waiting to see if anyone had survived at all. 

They never found Agnes. She just wasn't there, at all. Instead, they found Raymond Fielding, his body burnt so badly he was almost unrecognisable and missing his right hand. I tried asking around for a while, sure that she must not have survived, but I haven’t been able to find  _ anything  _ about her or what she did after she burned the house down. 

_ Statement ends. _

_ Logan: while this statement does add further context to statements  _ [ _ 0071304 _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZCWNOtahok&list=PLSbuB1AyaJk-GJV4d3AdvBMJHYiXUEDfI&index=9) _ and  _ [ _ 0113 _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPMAy0es_Fw&list=PLSbuB1AyaJk-GJV4d3AdvBMJHYiXUEDfI&index=20&ab_channel=RustyQuill) [ _ 005 _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=384O1iYgDQw&list=PLSbuB1AyaJk-GJV4d3AdvBMJHYiXUEDfI&index=21&ab_channel=RustyQuill) _ , and serves to further advance the strange nature of the house on Hill Top Road, it on its own does not appear to host anything supernatural, still, I had the others look into the related follow-up, to see if anything new could be found about Agnes Montague or the house itself, but both subjects prove themselves to be shockingly difficult to investigate. We know that Agnes died on 23rd November 2006 and that the house has been rebuilt, but almost nothing else can be found on either. It seems to me that the most interesting part of this statement is that it is slightly singed, and looks as if it has been rewritten in places over burn marks.  _

_ End Recording.  _


End file.
